Twentythree Packets of Soy Sauce
by celticann
Summary: I'm pointing at twenty-three packets of soy sauce."


**Twenty-three Packets of Soy Sauce**

CJ/Danny

Rating Teen – unrequited sexual tension; one "four letter word" used several times

Spoilers through Season 4 – Inauguration Part 2; possible spoilers for "Fold in Gently" , "Fruit of the Vine and Work of Human Hands", "Holding Hands on the Way Down"

Not mine, never were, never will be, but they consume my soul

Feedback and criticism always welcomed

_Late winter, 2003, Washington DC_

_Her_

"Take care of yourself, Ceej. And call me if you need me for anything. You're still my baby sister."

CJ returned her brother's hug. She stood in the door of her condo and watched as Mitch and her sister-in-law Allison made their way to the elevator. With a final wave as the elevator door opened and closed on the couple, she closed the door and set the locks. Walking through the living room, she picked up the three empty beer bottles and the napkins underneath them, and headed for the kitchen area of the open floor plan.

There wasn't anything else to clean up – her sister-in-law had insisted on taking care of everything – so CJ put the bottles in the recycling bin and opened the refrigerator.

Why do Chinese take-out places always give you way too much rice, she wondered as she pushed aside the three unopened cartons to get one of the remaining bottles of beer. Had she ordered the food, she would have told them that two pints would have been sufficient, but Mitch said they would take care of getting it when they came in from Harpers Ferry. So now the rice would sit in her refrigerator, becoming older and harder, until one day, in an unusual urge to do housework, she would toss them.

The bottle was capped more tightly than usual and as CJ reached for a church-key, she noticed something on the floor. Bending to pick it up, she saw that it was a packet of soy sauce; Allison had probably dropped it when putting the condiments in CJ's "junk drawer".

"I was pointing at twenty-three packets of soy sauce."

She held on to the counter for a few seconds, then sank heavily onto one of the barstools at the breakfast bar.

She hadn't minded the snow for herself that day before Christmas Eve; her holiday plans were low-maintenance. She was supposed to join her brother's family tomorrow, to spend two nights with them, sharing Hogan's bedroom. If the roads were really bad, Mitch would come in from West Virginia with his four-wheel drive to get her; after all these years, he was still that kind of brother. No, her concern was for the kids from New Haven, some of whom were flying to Seattle, to Chicago, to Tucson. They all looked so young, but they were adults. And she was old enough to be their mother "with benefit of BA before baby".

She had enjoyed this fourth Christmas season in the White House more than any of the others, except perhaps the first. The president had just won reelection in convincing fashion; the MS situation was behind them.

Of course, not all was perfect. Every now and then, something reminded her of Simon Donovan and what might have been. She wasn't getting any younger. (When she went in for her annual, the doctor gave her a fecal occult blood test kit and instructions for taking the samples for analysis.) And, buried in the back of her mind, was the fact that sometimes when she talked with her father, his mind seemed to wander. But, all in all, life was better than it had been for a while, and she had enjoyed the holiday season in Washington and was looking forward to its crescendo over the next few days.

She had made light of it, but she was a teensy bit hurt when she found out that the Press Corps had already done its gift exchange. Granted, it wasn't anything compared to some of the official parties – unspiked eggnog from cartons and Christmas cookies – but she liked working with this little band from the Fourth Estate and she wanted to let them know that.

Then "Santa" came in and gave her the pin. She assumed that Chris or Katie had taken charge – why is it that it's always the women who take over the social stuff? – and had barely formed her memories of goldfish and Gail when it happened.

The recognition was instantaneous. The undulating lips, so firm and so soft at the same time. The warm breath from the nostrils. The tongue that wasn't there, staying inside his open mouth, because he knew, and she knew, now as before, if he had possessed her mouth lingually, he would not be able to stop until another part of his body, longer, thicker, and firmer, invaded another warm and wet part of her body. The hand at the back of her head, cradling it where he wanted it to be, the hand that knew, in spite of everything she had said and he had said, that this was right, that this is what God wanted for them.

"Danny?"

And, suddenly, the wonderful Christmas was a thousand times more wonderful. He came back to her office. There was so much to talk about, so much to catch up on, so much to share. But it was as if Danny had not been gone all these many months. At one point, he pushed her hair behind her left ear and asked if she was okay in a quiet voice that told her he had sensed everything about Simon (or someone, Carol or Josh, had clued Danny in) and let her know that he was sorry for her hurt and but glad that she was still unclaimed. Jumbled thoughts, half thoughts, filled her mind. She wouldn't go to Harpers Ferry. She'd call and ask Allison if she could invite someone to join them Christmas day for dinner. She'd go a half-day late; she'd leave a half-day early.

Then Danny told her about the cricket player-slash- signal agent and her joy imploded. She had no inkling; no one had ever dropped the least little hint. But suddenly she knew. Sooner or later, this would come out and sooner or later, whether Danny and she wished it or no, there would have to be distance between them. Leo would demand it; her own sense of duty would demand it.

The holidays passed; the new congress was sworn in and began work. The Foreign Ops bill was first on the list.

Once again, Danny was a regular in her press room and it felt good to have him there. She easily fell back into the routine, calling him back to give him more background, to use him to put out information not ready for the Press Room podium.

Then came the day in the week before the inauguration when the red-headed reporter kept going on and on about Sharif's pilot. All the while Danny was talking, she kept looking at him. The shades of brown and dark rust were not only coordinated with each other but with his coloring. Danny had obviously been to a barber and/or a stylist. She stole a look at his hands. The nails were neat but not obviously manicured. Perhaps he had undergone a treatment; perhaps he had done them himself. She realized that she was letting down her guard, realized she had to pull back. She had to snap out of it in any way she could.

She regretted the crack about Danny's clothing before she finished giving voice to it. It was high school; it was mean. Come what may, the cattiness was beneath their friendship.

She saw the hurt he quickly hid; she wanted to apologize but he forestalled her with his return to the conversation about the pilot.

Later, their paths crossed again and somehow, she apologized and Danny accepted with nary a word said on the subject by either of them. They ended up eating Chinese food together while watching the Foreign Ops vote go down. She tried mightily, and, she was sure, so did he, to avoid the Sharif issue. His argument about Democratic bumfuzzlement hit close to home and she reacted too quickly. What she should have said was that being less than rigid was a good thing, that the Republicans were almost cult-like in their demand for everyone acting in lockstep. But instead, she took it out on Danny again, by denying him food, by denying him twenty-three packets of soy sauce.

Over the next few days, she became aware of the little conspiracy to push her toward Danny. In the restroom, she overheard Carol and Margaret talking about a shift in budgeting. Maybe CJ could take over there, Carol said. A lot of people were moving around with the new term, taking on different roles. Most Press Secretaries in the past didn't serve one full term, let alone two. Putting her size 11 foot into her mouth with the words "if I wanted Danny Concannon I could have him" was the inevitable consequence of her ambivalence on the issue.

And so she and Danny continued in their dance with each other, painfully aware that the threads of their lives would inexorably be woven into pain and heartache for the both of them, but powerless to stop the attraction – and not really wanting to even if they could.

Earlier, Mitch and Allison had talked about the oldest daughter of Allison's oldest brother, a young woman, getting her PhD from Miami of Florida, who had fallen in love with a fellow grad student from Finland. Ulrich was a fine young man, with a promising future in the academic world. He would be doing post-doctoral research in nuclear medicine at the university in Helsinki. Hannah's family knew that she was in love and were happy for her. But they also knew that the frozen north was not the best place for a newly-minted PhD marine biologist with specialization in coral reefs to start her career. "But the look on her face when she talks about him," Allison said. "I don't think I've seen that look on a woman's face since you and P - , in a long, long time."

It was tempting. CJ knew that were she to leave the White House, there would be many offers from which to choose. But could she, at forty-something, make the leap of faith she could not make at twenty? Could she follow the example of Allison's niece, the example of Abbey Bartlet? And why should she have to change? Why did the woman always be the one to change?

Okay, she told herself, that wasn't fair. Witness Margaret Thatcher's husband, Denis. Witness, for that matter, her own brother Randy. Randy had willingly abandoned his passion for biological engineering, his dream of one day producing another hybrid grain that would change the world the way Norman Borlaug did with dwarf wheat, and immersed himself in viticulture, all for the love of Gina. And there were myriad other examples of men deferring their dreams to those of the women they loved.

But it was not to be for Daniel Concannon and Claudia Jean Cregg – at least not now.

She turned to open a drawer for the soy sauce, stopped, and turned again to toss it in the trash. Who was she kidding? There was no more future for the condiment than there was for her and Danny.

_Him_

"There are probably some packets in the top drawer between the dishwasher and the sink. Help yourself."

Gabe, one of the younger guys in the White House press pool, had invited a bunch of the other men over to watch the Capitals on his new widescreen TV.

It was a typical young male gathering – pizza, wings, rings, chips, beer – in a typical young male apartment – a huge entertainment center complete with widescreen TV and sound pushed through the stereo speakers, with little else in the living room ("I've got a couch and a chair, we can move in the futon from the second bedroom. Maybe some of you can bring lawn chairs if the floor won't work for you.") and even less in the refrigerator.

Which is why, when Danny and Mark asked about ketchup for the onion rings, they were directed to whatever Gabe had saved from past fast-food forays.

"God, Gabe, how much soy sauce can one man use?" Mark asked. "I swear there's at least twenty, twenty-three packs here, don't you think, Danny?"

Twenty-three packets of soy sauce.

Why did Mark have to guess that number?

When Chris and Katie found out that he would be back in DC right before Christmas, they came up with the idea of surprising CJ and gleefully made all the arrangements with the others, arranging with Carol and Josh to get his credential renewed without CJ being any the wiser.

He had seen her on CNN, of course, over the last few months, but nothing compared to seeing her in person. Her hair was different. The bangs begged to be pushed to the side, to better see her beautiful eyes. The hair that caressed her jaw line screamed, "Sweep me behind the ears." Her height still belied the delicateness of her frame, the set of her shoulders. She seemed happy, she seemed at peace.

Except for just a bit of sadness, just a bit of emptiness, in her eyes. Most of her friends would not have noticed it. But then, he was not most of her friends, he was the man God intended for her.

He was afraid she would recognize him right away and was surprised when, in response to his query about her being a good girl, she flirted back and said that she had been "bad, very bad". Only his fear of being discerned kept him from wondering out loud if perhaps, rather than a gift, punishment might be more in order.

Her babbling about the pin, Gail, and the crackers was music to his ears and he drank it in until he had to kiss her the way he did the first time – assertive yet gentle, sexy yet non-threatening, letting her know that he wanted her the way a man ultimately wants the woman he loves but that he was okay with harnessing that desire until she was ready to be possessed by him.

He knew the nanosecond when surprise changed to recognition. CJ Cregg may not know in her mind that she was meant to be Danny Concannon's one true love, but her body and her mouth knew.

He didn't remember how long that magical time in her office, with the snow outside, the decorations inside, and the sounds of the Whiffenpoofs echoing through the hall, lasted. He only knew that they reconnected like the long-separated lovers they were (whether or not she knew and accepted it). He only knew that, way too soon, he fucked it up with the story about the cricket-playing airport ramp signal agent in Bermuda.

It could have waited. It wasn't going anywhere. No one else, presswise, had even a sniff.

He had ruined her Christmas. He had ruined what might have been their Christmas.

When you love something the way he loved CJ, you can read so much in their eyes and he knew that prior to his little revelation, she had had no idea about the possibility that Sharif's death had been anything other than the Bermuda Triangle claiming another plane. He also knew that, just as he sometimes "knew" things, that CJ knew, as soon as she digested his words, that he was right. He could see the conjectures flying in her mind – was this kept from her by just the President and Leo, or was this another case of India and Pakistan, where the other senior staffers, the male senior staffers, were part of the cabal and she was left out in the ring of ignorance? They had hurt her before, betrayed her before. They would hurt her and betray her again before she was done with this part of her life. Every Y chromosome in his body wanted to protect her from that hurt. She was his woman, whether she knew it or not.

After Christmas, it became, on his part, a matter of tough love. He apprised her of his progress, not to taunt and tease, but to let her know that she had to steel herself against what he would inevitably document and publish. And, knowing her sense of duty, steel the others against the same inevitability.

He might lie to everyone else, but he couldn't lie to himself. It hurt when she unknowingly stated in his presence that she didn't want him, and that if she did, she could get him. Maybe it was true that he was waiting, begging to be caught, but hearing that she knew it and was sharing it with Carol was a definite assault on his ego. As usual, he hid the hurt with a flip, offhand remark. Then, when CJ pulled him into the empty office and in the relative security of darkness, told him that she was indeed preening for him, choosing her clothes, choosing her scent, with him in mind, he felt so much better. It definitely made up for the time a week or so earlier when she indicated that he couldn't dress himself, that the only reason he looked presentable was that he was "dating a college graduate".

Because just as CJ was adorning her body for him, he was adorning his for her, and was able to do it himself, thank you very much. For one thing, what kind of guy would use one woman to help him attract another? Not Caitlin Concannon's son. For another, just because he sometimes let the beard and the hair go a week or two (well, maybe three) too long when he was busy, just because he liked to be comfortable in his clothing, didn't mean that he didn't know how to pick out colors that looked good on him and to put together an outfit in those colors. (Okay, he did check with the clerks in the stores – they were trained in all that stuff.)

He didn't want to hurt her. He wanted to protect her.

Not wrap her in bubble wrap and hide her away protect her, but cushion, hold onto the rope while she soared protect her. There was so much potential in her, perhaps in the White House, perhaps somewhere else, and he wanted her to reach for it, revel in it, be proclaimed and lauded for it.

He just wanted to be the one who, when it got a little too rough, was there to put his arm around her, was there to tell the world to go fuck itself and the horse it rode in on.

He wanted to be the one to give her the balance that he knew she was capable of, to love and support her emotionally, to love and fulfill her physically.

He wanted to be the one, God willing, to put the seed of life within her, to make her glow the way Andrea Wyatt was currently glowing, to make her glow the way Erin glowed when Fee and Ash were born, to make her glow the way Abbey Bartlet glowed when Zoey, or Liz, or Ellie came to the White House.

But in order to do so, he had to be himself. And being himself meant being a reporter. And being a reporter meant following leads and telling stories that needed to be told, come what may.

Except for one.

He would never tell the world about CJ Cregg and John Hoynes. He would kill anyone else who tried.

Next week, next month, next year, he would find all the links, have the irrefutable evidence, would tell the world what happened to Abdul Sharif. It would split them apart again.

His inner Celtic genes told him that someday, somehow, the two of them would have the fairytale ending they deserved. Until that time, he would continue the game with her, the two of them flying as moths around the flame of their unspoken love, enjoying the warmth until it temporarily consumed them. Then he would wait for their phoenix-like love to rise again.

He would wait until the White House hurt her so much she would finally accept the totality of his all-encompassing love for her and submit herself to him, not as a lesser to a superior but as a beloved to a lover. Again, his Celtic DNA told him to be patient. He had waited for almost four years; God give him the strength to hold on for another four.

He rummaged among the packets in the drawer. There, buried in the onslaught of soy sauce, was the treasure he sought.


End file.
